"stay out" doesn't mean coming out of the straps.
It means to NOT get pushed all the way in.
All the way in, you get locked in during off balance moments.
Stay out, meaning you have room to play, but securely IN, gives control and a chance to escape.
Slalom tightness just locks your foot IN when you crash, no good.
Too loose locks your foot in also.
Something in between, something YOU control, is the answer. The inSIDES of the footstrap provides the retention you need on landings.

That's it, exactly. To the OP, hey, sorry to hear you got hurt, but sh#t does happen... if it makes you feel any better a few seasons back I was on my 103L lit right up in some bucking chop, just keeping the hammer down and "going for it". I hopped over a bit of chop and the board tilted awkwardly in the air, and both feet slipped out with me still hooked in. My legs went under the board, & the fin smacked into my shin causing a huge hematoma that swelled my leg up the size of a football. The doctor said the trauma was equivalent to being hit full on with a baseball bat, and that it was really surprising my leg didn't break. Kept me off the water for quite a while. Never had any where near that kind of bad luck since, even when doing fairly big jumps. Get better!

since i've been forcing frontside rides on ever larger boards and in lighter winds, i've come to appreciate really deep foot straps. it makes jumping decisions easier too: avoid high stalling ones that end up as crash landings. if i have my feet in deep, they seem to come out quite easily. but, i typically have experience to know when i may be risking a bad landing. still, bad landings happen. when in doubt, bail. my gear seems to break less often too.

to say one should go smaller with boards when one is from cali/hawaii may lead still more people to skip surf sailing. the wind just does not deliver strong consistent winds like the pacific ocean seems to. my go to board in most conditions always seems to be a 105 to 111 liter wave to free ride. even when it's got gale written in the forecast. the conditions just are not consistent often enough for small sticks in this part of the atlantic.

Maybe some of you should read the entire post, not just one part.
OP was using a freeride board, too big for the conditions, AND jumping beyond his skill level.
If there is sufficient wind to jump really high, perhaps a smaller wave board that is more controlled might be the answer?
Your call.

Maybe some of you should read the entire post, not just one part.
OP was using a freeride board, too big for the conditions, AND jumping beyond his skill level.
If there is sufficient wind to jump really high, perhaps a smaller wave board that is more controlled might be the answer?
Your call.

My call is also smaller, more controllable boards. Ingerbritsen disagrees, favoring much larger boards even in Gorge conditions. 90 liters is our intersection for average sized guys ... big by my preferences, minimal by his posted advice. I'll throw my little $#!+ up in the air with abandon, figuring gravity, time, and body armor will get me back down in one piece, skill or no skill. The windage of 90 liters, however, gets my attention and my respect, and with 100 liters and/or a foot of fin, I pay a LOT of attention to my jumps (and, because my swell is all wind-generated, bigger $#!+ = smaller ramps). And that's with decades, not just days, of jumping WSers behind me, not even counting what has to be over a million jumps, including some downright serious altitudes and speed, on motorcycles and snowmobiles.

A strong, alert WSer can often, probably usually, brute force a small board (≤80L, ≤10" fin) into submission sufficiently to avoid injury in a blown landing, particularly if he's at least managing to set the tail down first to soften the impact. Ya just use yer muscles in that big triangle to take the damned straps with you and hope you win; if they rip free from the board at least you'll be back on the water in 20 minutes rather than next season.

With bigger boards, your odds of doing that successfully diminish, and I have never yet seen a strap rip off a board in a crash; don't count on that. But at least tensed muscles reinforce our joints' ligaments, reducing the odds of joint injury. i.e., joints not splinted by tensed muscles or too lax from too much stretching are much more vulnerable.

The opposite approach is to sense a crash in time to let yourself collapse into it and go with the flow. You have fractions of a second to make that call; it has to become instinctive, not conscious.

Come on LeeD, tingram said that he has been sailing 25 years. In my view, that suggests that he's probably got a wealth of experience. Don't you think that some of the conclusions you're jumping to are a bit over-the-top, especially since you've never met the guy?

Without reading anyone else's suggestions, because I just don't really care. My opinion is that at 165lbs a 105 and a 5.5 were too much for you in the waves. I think your smaller board will help a lot. Footstraps that are loose on the width but snug, not near tight, on the height are also good. You really don't want to land flat on your board so either sheet in and drive the nose first (You'll be surprised how soft the landing is). Or sheet out and land on the tail. It sounds like the board was just too big and you realy have to push to keep it level from rail to rail. I will also tell you, when wave riding, make sure you go straight into the breaking wave. If you try an avoid the lip and it hits you while you go sideways, you will get hurt. If you hit that lip straight on, it'll just turn you back around and set you up for your bottom turn.
When I jump and I know I'm going to land flat in the straps, as I land i throw the sail away and try and fall back as i hit the water. You may get a back slap, but it does save your ankles and board from cracking. A key is always try to have your knees bent to absorb the impact. This lengthens the impulse time which is the amount of force over time. Good luck, don't get phased, your new board will help.

25 years does not make an experienced sailor applying good judgement.
Board is too big, period.
High jumps with a freeride board IN SURF conditions is a mistake no experienced sailor makes. The waves, coming in, even in onshore wind conditions, just adds too much momentum into your jumps, especially if you hit the corner of the waves.
The mistake was in gear judgement first, then going for a big jump second.

Well, it obviously didn't work out so well! Can we call it a draw - an "experienced" windsurfer who tried to send it when he should have known he wasn't fully controlling the jumps and didn't fully appreciate the risk of a bad landing? Anyhow, thanks for all of the comments. I am hoping that my excellent FL wavesailing spot (the Poles, Hanna Park) will allow for me to use a smaller board than is typical at other Florida spots.

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